


every breath, every hour has come to this

by anthologia



Category: Avalon High (2010), Merlin (TV)
Genre: Modern Era, Reincarnation, apologies to Miles for writing him out of this universe, he has been waiting TOO LONG, shameless crossover, someone give Merlin a hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-12
Updated: 2018-09-12
Packaged: 2019-07-11 08:12:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15968285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anthologia/pseuds/anthologia
Summary: He doesn’t need the Order of the Bear to let him know that Arthur’s been found; he feels it under his skin, the pull of magic that tells him his king is waiting for him.He hits his destination mid-afternoon. Avalon University—somewhere Fate is laughing at him, he’s sure—has a sprawling campus that, by rights, ought to make it a nightmare to locate a single reincarnated prat, but he follows the tugging at the edges of his senses that lead him to a runner’s track.





	every breath, every hour has come to this

**Author's Note:**

> I started thinking about an Avalon High/BBC Merlin crossover in which BBC Arthur reincarnates as Allie Pennington, an adorable smol sweetheart whose soul has clearly gotten its shit together in the millennia it's been waiting to come back, and now I can't stop. I even made a music video??? JOIN ME IN THIS CROSSOVER PURGATORY.
> 
> Title from Christina Perri's "A Thousand Years," a song which was clearly written with Arthur/Merlin in mind.

He doesn’t need the Order of the Bear to let him know that Arthur’s been found; he feels it under his skin, the pull of magic that tells him his king is waiting for him.

He books the first flight he can find to the US, dipping into the vast store of funds that he’s amassed over the centuries. He’s twitchy in the line for car rental, irritable and impatient like an addict trying to get to his next fix. Every second drags through his bones excruciatingly slowly, and his head is so full of Camelot that he barely even hears the music piping through the slightly tinny speakers on the drive.

He hits his destination mid-afternoon. Avalon University—somewhere Fate is laughing at him, he’s sure—has a sprawling campus that, by rights, ought to make it a nightmare to locate a single reincarnated prat, but he follows the tugging at the edges of his senses that lead him to a runner’s track.

He’s expecting gold hair, a linebacker’s shoulders, an infuriating smirk, and he finds it. Despite running in a group, the man’s engaged himself in a one-on-one race with a young brunette woman; Merlin can see it in the way he glances over at her every few seconds, gaining and losing and gaining and losing. They’re pretty evenly matched, up until the man sets his foot down _just so_ that she’s thrown off and loses her balance.

Merlin starts forward to check on her, Gaius’s tutelage still baked deep into his bones even with all the advances to medicine over the years, but a blonde runner gets there first.

“Are you _kidding_ me? What’s wrong with you?” she snaps at the man as she kneels at the girl’s side. “You could have seriously hurt her!”

Merlin slows his jog a few yards away, close enough to hear easily but not interfering yet.

“Not my fault she’s clumsy,” the man—ass, really—says.

“I’m okay,” the brunette says and, with the blonde girl’s help, stands up again, settling her weight gingerly onto her legs and starting to walk off the track.

“I should report you,” the blonde girl says.

The ass snorts. “Good luck with that. Who do you think I am?”

The girl crosses her arms. “I already know you’re an asshole.”

“I’m the head of campus security’s _son_.”

“I’m sorry,” she says, her voice dripping with sarcasm, “I didn’t realize you were a _connected_ asshole. I don’t care _who_ you are, no one has the right to just—“

She has his arm twisted up against his back before the punch can land, and Merlin’s head rings with déjà vu. Even after millennia, his muscles remember the deep ache of that move.

“Now that you’ve _clearly_ attempted assault and battery on a field with witnesses, you might want to rethink your position,” she announces, giving him one final twist before letting him go. He has the intelligence to walk away with only a few parting expletives, which Merlin might’ve appreciated if he felt like he could breathe.

Not the shoulders of a linebacker. They’re well-muscled but thin, barely covered by the Pendragon red tank top she’s wearing. Her hair is the gold he remembers, tied back into a ponytail that brushes the top of her back. Where Arthur was of roughly equal height with him, he has to tilt his head down to look her in the face.

He has no idea what he looks like right now, but it must be concerning because she tilts her head at him with a furrow in her forehead. “Hey—are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he says, honestly—because he’s maybe never felt more _okay_ in his life than right, even though he’s honestly not sure if he’s about to burst into laughter or hysterical tears.

The worry doesn’t exactly leave her face, but she doesn’t accuse him of lying yet. “You look kinda familiar. Do I… know you?”

“Yeah.” He swipes at his eyes—tears, definitely—but his breath comes out in a frantic sort of laugh. “You could say that.”

She frowns at him for a moment longer, as if she’s trying to place his name, before offering a hand out for him to shake. “My name’s Allie,” she—Arthur, the Once and Future King, his other half—says.

He grasps it gratefully, desperately. “My name’s Merlin.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> If you are interested in my fics and want more, I have an account at syntactition.tumblr.com where I have bits of stories that are currently in the works and other ficlets and stories that haven't made their way to AO3.


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